Now We Wait

I am amazed at the goodness of the Lord which can be seen in every turn on life's road. We have had some busy weeks since starting the Chinese adoption process. Gathering paperwork, filling out forms, getting medical exams and police clearances, and visiting a notary public several times has kept us quite busy over the last month or so.

We have made some very encouraging progress in the adoption process (finally!). About two weeks ago, we received official pre-approval from CCCWA (China's adoption authority) to adopt a certain precious little girl! Pre-approval is great news and means that this adoption is going full steam ahead! It is the first major step in the adoption process in China.  Looks like we will have a new daughter sometime this fall!

Another big step we reached just last week was completing our home study update. What a relief to have that portion of the work in this adoption behind us. It is a very important step, because it is necessary for us to send in an updated home study with our I-800A form. This form is sent to United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) to apply for approval as adoptive parents. I dropped our I-800A in the mail, along with the home study, last Saturday (March 1).

We will also need to include our home study with our dossier when the time comes.

At this point, I am quite proud of the fact that all of our dossier documents have been collected and notarized, with the exception of the I-800A approval letter. Once we have received that, our dossier will be complete and we will be ready for the next step. The I-800A approval process takes about 8-12 weeks.

So for now, we wait.